SENT BY RED
Pro-Gun Argument . . .
"The Gun Is Civilization" by Maj. L. Caudill USMC (Ret)
Human beings only have two ways to deal with one another: reason and force.
If you want me to do something for you, you have a choice of either
convincing me via argument, or force me to do your bidding under
threat of force.
Every human interaction falls into one of those two categories,
without exception. Reason or force, that's it.
In a truly moral and civilized society, people exclusively interact
through persuasion.
Force has no place as a valid method of social interaction, and the
only thing that removes force from the menu is the personal firearm,
as paradoxical as it may sound to some.
When I carry a gun, you cannot deal with me by force.
You have to use reason and try to persuade me, because I have a way to
negate your threat or employment of force.
The gun is the only personal weapon that puts a 100-pound woman on
equal footing with a 220-pound mugger, a 75-year old retiree on equal
footing with a 19-year old gang banger, and a single guy on equal
footing with a carload of drunk guys with baseball bats. The gun
removes the disparity in physical strength, size, or numbers between a
potential attacker and a defender.
There are plenty of people who consider the gun as the source of bad
force equations.
These are the people who think that we'd be more civilized if all guns
were removed from society, because a firearm makes it easier for a
[armed] mugger to do his job.
That, of course, is only true if the mugger's potential victims are
mostly disarmed either by choice or by legislative fiat--it has no
validity when most of a mugger's potential marks are armed.
People who argue for the banning of arms ask for automatic rule by the
young, the strong, and the many, and that's the exact opposite of a
civilized society. A mugger, even an armed one, can only make a
successful living in a society where the state has granted him a force
monopoly.
Then there's the argument that the gun makes confrontations lethal
that otherwise would only result in injury.
This argument is fallacious in several ways. Without guns involved,
confrontations are won by the physically superior party inflicting
overwhelming injury on the loser.
People who think that fists, bats, sticks, or stones don't constitute
lethal force watch too much TV, where people take beatings and come
out of it with a bloody lip at worst.
The fact that the gun makes lethal force easier works solely in favor
of the weaker defender, not the stronger attacker. If both are armed,
the field is level.
The gun is the only weapon that's as lethal in the hands of an
octogenarian as it is in the hands of a weight lifter.
It simply wouldn't work as well as a force equalizer if it wasn't both
lethal and easily employable.
When I carry a gun, I don't do so because I am looking for a fight,
but because I'm looking to be left alone.
The gun at my side means that I cannot be forced, only persuaded. I
don't carry it because I'm afraid, but because it enables me to be
unafraid. It doesn't limit the actions of those who would interact
with me through reason, only the actions of those who would do so by
force.
It removes force from the equation... and that's why carrying a gun is
a civilized act.
By Maj. L. Caudill USMC (Ret.)
So the greatest civilization is one where all citizens are equally
armed and can only be persuaded, never forced.
This is worth printing and sharing with others!
